Религиозное состояние американского народа и искание им истинной Церкви

I. Now and two centuries ago. The First Civilizers of North America. Indians. Features of their social and everyday life. Their mental, moral and religious state Religiously, the American people present a deeply interesting subject for study, an irrefutable proof of the truth that the religious need lies in the very nature of the human spirit and is as eternal as the human spirit. Cut off from the ancient historical centers of religious beliefs by an immense ocean, these people not only did not suppress their religious instincts, but on the contrary, they received a development in them that most European peoples do not currently have. While the latter, tired of the prose of everyday life for centuries, succumbed to the cold and soulless skepticism that corrodes the people's organisms, the American people, full of life and youthful passion, are selflessly devoted to their internal development - in all its powers and functions, both in political-social and religious-moral relations. From the very beginning of their history, moving to an unknown wild country, this people had to renounce the age-old traditions of the Old World, developed by a complex historical process and often constraining the free exercise of popular forces or directing them to fruitless activities. He came face to face with nature and only had to fight with it in order to ensure his existence. This mighty struggle developed in him energy and self-help, equalized the balance of his forces, balanced his physical nature with his spiritual one, and from here developed that wonderful type of balanced person that the American seems to be. Balance of mental and physical strength is the most characteristic feature of the American people. Thanks to her, he is alien to extremes in thought and life, and in this respect he comes closest to the type of perfect person of all peoples. This feature sharply distinguishes it from European peoples. Due to this very balance in its physical and spiritual nature, it necessarily represents a type of general balanced national development. In the Old World, popular development proceeds through limited centralization, so that the genius of the people is concentrated primarily in a small group of the upper classes and there reaches its highest manifestation and development, while the general mass of the people remains in the inertia of dark ignorance. In the United States, on the contrary, the genius of the people is distributed more or less evenly throughout the entire mass of the people; but due to the fact that it spreads in breadth, it no longer reaches such a height as in Europe. The American people have numerous artists and poets who, in particular, show undoubted signs of a great national genius, but for all that this genius in them does not have the powerful force that distinguishes the genius of first-class European poets and artists. It is filled with philosophizing thinkers, and the best of them achieve a remarkable power of transcendental thinking; but at the same time, they do not have that powerful and free scope of philosophical thought that distinguishes the great philosophers of Europe. In regard to refined thinking and the free flight of human genius, the American people undoubtedly rank behind the main European nations and have not yet produced such geniuses who could be of universal importance in the field of pure thought or poetic creativity. But on the other hand, he has no rival in the Old World in relation to that healthy practical thinking, which is often faster and better suited to the true essence of the subject than the most refined and abstract thought. He is little interested in the abstract questions of human existence that concern European thought, but he follows with deep interest the practical discovery of them in history and in it finds a clear answer to the needs of his thought. Hence, while in Europe thought is in constant flux and experiences periodic crises of extreme passions, American thought smoothly follows the path of continuously progressive development. And besides, while European thought in its highest representatives in its powerful flight is completely divorced from life, getting lost in the transcendental heights of foggy speculation, American thought always goes only ahead of life, and the latter, having its accessible guide, easily and freely directs its course according to its instructions. This attitude of thought to life is evident in all the relationships of the American people. They are the freest people politically, but at the same time they are the most conservative people. The utopian ideas of extreme European thinkers are alien to him, and he treats them with disdainful composure as a sick chimera that hinders the healthy development of practical life. Hence, socialism, from which European states shudder, has absolutely no basis for itself among the American people and drags out a miserable existence in the dirty corners of the German emigration 1 . They are the most educated people in the world, but their education must be measured in breadth rather than in height, and the course of its higher colleges cannot be equal to that of European universities. In social terms, he does not know the generic class division and a wide field of activity is open to man in all spheres of life, which only he can achieve with the help of his internal abilities and talents; but at the same time, once a person has achieved a position, it is surrounded by the same social honor and advantages that are associated in the Old World with historically strengthened positions. Finally, in religious terms, they are the most free-thinking people, but their free-thinking at the same time finds limitations in the general conservatism of its character and therefore it does not know such extremes with which religious free-thinking in Europe is inextricably linked. His religious free-thinking is Christian free-thinking and it does not go beyond the limits of positive Christian truths. European rationalism is as alien to the American people as European socialism is alien to them 2 . As a result of the harmonious development of physical and moral forces in the American people there is thus a mental disposition which constitutes a certain kind of mediocrity. But this mediocrity should not be understood in the European sense. It does not constitute a weakness of the productive forces, but is precisely the result of their healthy self-limiting action. Americans are quite a young people. His productive forces are distinguished by all the freshness and ebullience of youth. The thought in it works with amazing energy and the practice perceives the results of mental work with passion. Therefore, if we use the term mediocrity to denote its character, then it should be understood in the sense of that healthy state of the body, which, with all the ebullience of vital forces in it, constitutes the surest guarantee of the moderation of its functions. A sick or disordered organism is always more prone to excesses and hobbies than a healthy organism, which, due to its normal development, is more subject to the legitimate demands of a moderate nature in everything. As a result, despite external limitations, American nature is in full swing with internal activity. Its forces, without going beyond the limits of moderation, show ebullient energy within these limits, and therefore the general level of life activity in it is much higher than the average level that can be found in Europe. The American people, alien to political utopias, are at the same time passionately devoted to their existing political system. The same is true in religious terms. Alien to European destructive rationalism and deadening skepticism, the American people are devoted with youthful energy to positive Christian truths. The level of his religious character is as high as the level of his political consciousness. His religious faith and political independence constitute the two main elements of his life, and in them he mainly lives, moves and has his being. Religious faith for him is the supreme ideal, his political system is his real life. But just as in every young organism the ideal has more vitality and attractiveness than the reality, so in the American people its religious faith has even greater vitality than its political life. The American people owe their very origins to religious zeal. The “Pilgrim Fathers,” as people respectfully call the first settlers of America, moved to the newly discovered continent and were prompted to do so by their religious zeal. They were ready to endure all the dangers of the ocean voyage and expose themselves to all unforeseen difficulties in the new land just to maintain their faith. And upon arrival on the American continent, their first thought was the foundation of the “kingdom of God” on earth, such an order of life that would be a complete expression of their religious beliefs. They were so imbued with the religious spirit that the theocratic principle, almost in its Old Testament severity, formed the basis of their community life. This was an extreme and is explained by the exceptional position of the Puritans. As such, it could not survive during subsequent historical development. Over time, various nationalities began to arrive in the country, bringing with them a variety of morals and religious beliefs. By settling among the Puritans, the colonists of different faiths made it impossible for the continuation of the theocratic regime in all its original severity, and therefore it naturally began to yield to other influences. The original American population consisted of English Puritans and Dutch. While the former were representatives of a harsh, fanatical religious regime, the latter brought with them a religious free-thinking which, when reinforced by the subsequent German element, became an important counterweight to theocratic excesses. The interaction of these elements constitutes the present character of the religiosity of the American people. The tension of the Puritan religious system was so great that, when confronted with an opposing element, it could only lose enough of it to limit its extreme manifestations. On the other hand, the free-thinking of the Dutch-German element was not so great as to be able to resist when confronted with the Puritan enthusiasms, and therefore it was largely subordinated to Puritanism. Hence, the average level of religiosity could only be a level at which religiosity, while displaying the features of moderate free-thinking, has a predominant character of puritanism. This character characterizes the modern religiosity of the American people. In particular he is inclined towards religious free-thinking, but at the same time Puritanism is the dominant element even in such localities where one would expect a predominance of the opposite element 5 . Obviously, Puritanism, as the basis of the entire worldview of the first American settlers, had so far taken root on American soil and even been embodied in political institutions that for subsequent settlers it began to appear as the main spirit of American life and therefore they, as new newcomers, of necessity had to submit to it as the dominant mood, despite the fact that Puritanism as a church-religious community had long ago lost its primacy position in the country 6). Subsequent emigration, to date, has not produced significant changes in this general mood. The waves of European emigration, despite their external diversity, quickly dissolve into the sea of ​​the American native population, and the spirit of Puritanism still hovers over it. The heterogeneity of the emigration elements, while subordinate to the prevailing mood, nevertheless exerted its own influence on the state of this mood. Left to its own devices, Puritanism had a strong tendency and could degenerate into a dry, harsh and lifeless system of theological knowledge, without vital, humane feeling. European emigration, with its various pressures on him, constantly smoothed out his too hard and angular features and poured life-giving streams of individual religious feeling into his dry forms. The general religious state of the American people is formed from the organic combination and self-restraint of various elements. Just as the mass of the present American population consists of elements of all kinds of nationalities settled on the original frame of the Anglo-Saxon race, so the general religious mood of this mass is a variety of traits merged under one common cover of Puritanism. Since the main components of the emigration of recent decades are German and Irish settlers, these nationalities have a strong influence on the cultural and religious character of the country. Hence, under the general Puritan spirit in the religiosity of the American people, the features of German religious individualism and Irish religious romanticism appear especially clearly. Through the collision of such disparate elements, American religiosity could acquire the same balanced character as the American people in other respects. In it, none of its three constituent elements could receive extreme development, neither stern Puritanism, nor extreme Germanic individualism, nor vague Celtic romanticism. All these three elements are balanced among themselves. This balance explains all the essential features in the religious life of the American people. Thanks to the general high level of vitality in the young American people, their religious feeling is also characterized by vigorous activity and youthful freshness. He does not have that fatigue and dullness of feeling that is noticed in the aged peoples of Europe and manifests itself in the form of indifference or skepticism. His religious needs are strong and persistent, and he satisfies them openly and enthusiastically. German individualism brings personal critical self-awareness into this feeling and gives logical meaning to faith, thus raising it to the level of a distinct religious self-awareness. Celtic Romanticism gives religious faith a strong aesthetic coloring, thus raising it above ordinary logical sentiment. Finally, Puritanism, with its strict form, limits the extreme development of both Germanic individualism and Celtic romanticism and thus restrains them within proper limits, preventing one-sidedness in development. This explains the remarkable fact that the theological thought of the American people constantly works in the field of religious truths and yet never goes beyond the limits of faith - into the dark region of skepticism and denial; religious feeling is distinguished by extraordinary energy and yet rarely exceeds the limits of logical comprehension; aesthetic feeling plays an important role in religious cult and, however, never turns into an excess of external forms. The stamp of moderation lies on all aspects of his religious life 7 . If the general result of the collision of various religious elements was to create a balance in the general religious mood of the American people, then, on the other hand, the organic interaction of such different elements was necessarily bound to produce a constant fluctuation and movement of the religious forces composing this mood. Hence arises that religious ferment which constitutes the most famous and characteristic feature of American religiosity. The religious forces of the people, finding reconciliation in the general mood, cannot merge into an indifferent unity, and therefore the process of fermentation and assimilation is a natural and necessary result of this state. The nature of the fermentation process itself is determined by the general state of religiosity. The religious feeling of the American people, as stated above, is characterized by strong energy. The people are extremely sensitive to the interests of religious truth. He cannot be indifferent to the various discoveries of religious truth. He longs for it in its undoubted, undeniable, categorical form. Therefore, the religious ferment among the American people is precisely a search for religious truth. To what extent do these conditions of his religious life correspond to the people's desire to find religious truth? Americans, both by their very origin and by their current predominant character, are a Protestant people. North America itself owes its settlement to Protestantism, which, avoiding oppression in the Old World, sought freedom of development for itself in the New. Roman Catholicism is still an exotic plant on American soil and is only just beginning to acclimatize to it. Therefore, when considering the religious character of the American people in the proper sense, we must keep in mind Protestantism as its general form of faith, as the basic principle of its very religiosity. Hence the answer to the question posed may be found in the definition of the principles of Protestantism and their relation to the fundamental character of the American people. Protestantism, as a religious system, is based on two main principles, from which all its content logically develops. As a negation of the system that had brought the external church organization to the suppression of all personal initiative, he began to teach that the church is only an invisible society and members can be united with it only in the most general principle, namely, only in faith, so that everyone who believes that he has been redeemed by Christ is thereby a member of the church, whatever his private opinions may be in all other respects. Secondly, in contrast to the Roman Catholic system, which denied the individual his own participation in determining the true doctrine, he rejected the authority of the church and determined that every person, with the help of his own reason, on the basis of the only sacred scripture, can and should determine what his religious doctrine and his moral code should be. The logical and necessary consequence of these principles was that each person turned out to be completely responsible for himself in the matter of religious and moral teaching. The denial of the church as a visible society and doctrinal authority was opposed by extreme individualism, in which the entire burden of responsibility fell on the individual, who alone had to create his own salvation through his own efforts. Such a system, viewed psychologically, corresponds to the national character, which is distinguished by a critical independence of thought, preferring its own original judgment to any public authority. It best corresponds to the mental make-up of the German people and hence the extreme development of Protestant ideas in them, which at the same time are weakly grafted onto the Romance peoples, who have the opposite mental make-up. If salvation really only depended on faith alone, then human consciousness could easily be reconciled with this basic principle of Protestantism. But faith itself, if it has vitality in itself, must necessarily be expressed in a certain form, on which, on its part, more or less true observance of it depends. Due to unlimited individualism, faith had to take many forms, one way or another expressing its content. With such diversity, the question naturally arises as to which of these forms represents the most adequate expression of the one general truth of faith. With little sensitivity to religious truth, this question is not important and people are satisfied with the general content of the form. But with the strong energy of religious feeling, it acquires enormous significance. The people are looking for a form that would more fully and truly express the faith they contain, and cannot be satisfied with a form that, in their opinion, is not adequate to the content. The American people are distinguished by such energy of feeling, and hence the religious ferment in them that constitutes a characteristic feature of their religious life. In this search for truth, due to the basic principle of Protestantism, every person is left exclusively to himself. She does not have for herself such a more general and lasting authority to which she could turn for help and on whose decision she could rely. From here religious thought passes through many forms and is in constant hesitation and doubt regarding the result of its logical work. The result of this ferment is the fragmentation of the religious forms in which American religiosity is manifested. This fragmentation in itself, together with the instability of forms, is a clear proof of the failure of individualism to find a form that would fully express the truth. There can be only one such form. The consciousness of this truth may find a counterweight in mental individualism, but as soon as the strength of mental individualism is not so developed as to bear the weight of responsibility, then the principle of Protestantism can only be a burden on the religious consciousness of the people, and sooner or later it will try to throw off this burden and find a principle more consistent with its character. If we compare these basic principles of Protestantism with the main character traits of the American people, it turns out that although they seem to correspond to each other, there is a significant difference in them. The main feature of the American character, as shown above, is a healthy mediocrity, which is determined by the state of self-limiting elements and forces. Because of this healthy mediocrity, as an expression of the balance of power, the American character is alien to extremes. He is independent, but at the same time he loves moderation. He will not tolerate any external restriction, but at the same time he imposes on himself such restrictions as in some respects seem to be a constraint for a less freedom-loving character, and he obeys them with amazing precision. Nowhere does the discipline achieve such widespread development as in America. In schools it reaches the level of military bearing and is applied with equal severity to both male and female institutions. Public opinion nowhere has such power over individuals as in this land of freedom, and violation of established social rules is punished with merciless severity. Both socially and especially religiously, the character of the American people reveals the traits of strict Puritanism, which gives everything a strict disciplinary imprint. It is clear that such a character does not correspond to the boundless individualism represented by Protestantism, and this discrepancy is clearly revealed in the history of the development of the religious consciousness of the American people. The first stage of this development was the recognition of one exclusive, unchangeable form of doctrine, outside of which everything was condemned as wicked and harmful, and the system itself was elevated to the level of infallible church authority, although this was obviously in clear contradiction with the basic principles of Protestantism, which underlay this system. Such was the era of the reign of original, pure, stern and exclusive Puritanism. Over time, out of necessity, this exceptional system had to give way in part to new alien elements that brought with them the features of German freethinking and Romanesque sentimentalism. This clash of opposing elements resulted in such a fluctuation of forces that, under the visible general cover of Puritanism, the real center of religious consciousness was lost and religious ferment began. Religious consciousness was fragmented, the people did not have one common guiding principle of faith and, relying solely on their own strength, devoted themselves to the search for religious truth. With the intensity of religious feeling, the ferment was strong, sects arose and disappeared, religious consciousness either intensified or weakened. Due to inertia, the process of centrifugal development has reached its highest point; The sects not only fragmented into the smallest units, but also became extremely intolerant of one another. Subtle confessional polemics became the dominant mood of preaching and theological literature. This process reached its extreme development before the Civil War, when at the same time it was matched in the process of political decentralization. At that time, the country was a chaotic mixture of both religious and political opinions. When the process of political decentralization reached its extreme development, followed by a crisis that gave the opposite direction to the political consciousness of the people, this crisis at the same time was a turning point in the religious consciousness of the people. The heavy blow of the war shook the people's organism to its internal foundations and a terrible abyss opened before the people's consciousness, to which they came through the process of decentralization. As if frightened by this abyss, the people's consciousness turned sharply in the opposite direction, and a rapid process of centralization began. With such a reverse process of political consciousness, religious consciousness also could not go in the previous direction. The crisis and the turnaround it produced captured the inner life of the people so deeply that it had an irresistible effect on all the forces of the people and gave them all a new direction. The idea of ​​their national unity began to grow stronger among the people, and the political party representing the beginnings of decentralization began to decline more and more. In religious terms, the new process made itself felt in the fact that religious ferment began to weaken, religious consciousness, tired of the fruitless search for truth based on the principles of individualism, began to look for stronger and more reliable support for itself, and therefore small sects began to group around larger communities. This process continues to this day. Its signs are, on the one hand, less denominational irritation, so that preachers only occasionally touch upon denominational differences and deal primarily with the general truths of Christianity 8 , and on the other hand, the clearly developing idea of ​​religious unity 9 . Religious consciousness is obviously becoming more and more tired of fruitless fermentation and begins to crave unity, which could give peace and reliable support to personal consciousness. This thirst is manifested in the fact that the ideal of a “single future church”, which should be created from a motley mixture of current sects, increasingly appears before the religious consciousness of the American people. In religious journals, this idea has played an important role in recent decades and provides the best confirmation and revelation of the process of religious centralization that we have outlined. The ideal of the “future church” is naturally presented differently, and each of the currently dominant religious communities assumes that it is destined to gather around itself a divided and scattered Christianity and that it will realize within itself the idea of ​​a single church. This claim is expressed both by the main Protestant communities and especially by the Roman Catholic Church. Of the former, Methodism and the Protestant-Episcopal Church are particularly prominent. Methodism represents one of the strongest religious communities on the American continent, and due to some coincidence of its religious principles with the intensity of religious feeling in the American people, it is considered by many to be a specifically American religious form 10 . All the more understandable is the claim to primacy among American religious communities on the part of the Methodists themselves. The main Methodist organ published a detailed article on this subject, the author of which says that in the past successes of Methodism and its present fundamental principles lies an omen of its final superiority over all other Christian communities and therefore it is precisely destined to be the “future church” of the entire country 11 . The main body of the Episcopal Church, on the contrary, says that Methodism lost its pure vitality when it was separated from its "mother church", and therefore can never meet the needs of future generations; and if any church is destined to be the future church of the country, it is only the Episcopal Church 12. For its part, Roman Catholicism confidently proclaims that the future of the country is in its hands and only it will lead the American people to unity in religion and make them as united in a religious sense as they are united in a political sense 13. Thus, the idea of ​​religious unity is vaguely wandering in the minds of the American people, and they are looking for a church that, alien to one-sidedness, can, with its catholic comprehensiveness, satisfy its many-sided needs. The American people are multifaceted by their very composition. It was formed and is still being formed from many different nationalities, which are annually poured into its body through the flow of emigration. It includes not only all kinds of peoples of the European continent, but also native primitive American tribes, African blacks and Asian Mongols. All this diverse mass is little by little processed into one people, forming one physical body and one spirit. The fusion of such diverse elements in the American character obviously cannot lead to one-sidedness. Such a nature can only be comprehensive, with a balance of forces in both physical and spiritual nature. Hence, in religious terms, he can only be satisfied with a church that is as multifaceted in its catholicity as the people themselves are multifaceted. Does any of the three churches named show signs of such catholic versatility? If we turn to Methodism and consider its basic principles, then its inconsistency in the sense of a Catholic Church capable of satisfying the religious consciousness of the American people will immediately be revealed. Methodism, by its very origin, is a new phenomenon in the field of religious life and therefore does not have historical authority behind it. It constitutes a protest against the dead formalism of the Anglican Church and, as such, is an artificial or temporary phenomenon, and therefore does not itself have the makings of future development. As a product of Protestantism, it is necessarily one-sided and has no signs of catholicity. As a Protestant phenomenon, he is at the same time a child of that individualism from which the American religious consciousness suffers and persistently seeks salvation in more durable principles. The peculiarity of Methodism from other Protestant communities is that it is a religion of feeling in its extreme tension 14 . While in other Protestant faiths the individualism of reason dominates, creating its salvation on the basis of the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, in Methodism the individualism of feeling, seeking salvation in the achievement of religious ecstasy, prevails. It quickly took root among the American masses, and this is explained by the excess of religious feeling in the American people. But by this very basic principle, he cannot have a future in the country. Now it constitutes the religion of the lower masses and, incidentally, of the black population. With the development of these masses of people to the degree of balance of reason and feeling, he will lose all ground for himself. It is clear that Methodism cannot be the “church of the future,” the idea of ​​which is fermenting in the minds of the American people. The Episcopal Church seems to have greater claims to the great religious mission of uniting the American people into one religious body. This church is a community, which at its core is significantly free from the general, shortcomings of Protestantism, namely the extreme development of individualism. It occupies the middle between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, as two opposing systems. From this side it appears to be free both from the extremes of Protestant individualism and from the opposite extremes of Roman papism, and is therefore more in keeping with the balanced character of the American people. But a closer look at her inner character reveals her significant weakness. The Episcopal Church in the United States is an offspring of Anglicanism, and therefore is based on the same principles on which Anglicanism arose and exists. The latter in its essence is a moderate protest against Roman papism. Divorced from its historical framework, Anglicanism found itself out of touch with its historical past and without a definite basis in the present. As a result, it began to seek support for itself in nationalism and became the state church of England. No matter how precarious this position may be, he could still, with the help of the state, which took him into its care, organize into an independent community and have a sufficient basis for its existence. As a state church, it also moved to the soil of the New World. But with the declaration of independence of the United States, he lost his only support - in the English state and found himself in a difficult situation. The only outcome for him was either to develop his Protestant principles to their extreme logical consequences and thus plunge into the general sea of ​​Protestant fermentation, or, on the contrary, to return to his historical past and reunite with Roman Catholicism. However, his body, although artificially created, managed to sufficiently balance between the two extremes, so that he could not completely lean in one direction or the other. Parts of it fell away and were absorbed by both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but the whole organism continued to maintain its existence. Feeling its internal weakness, Anglicanism, even on American soil, tried to rely on the state. But since here, due to the principle of separation of church and state, he could not become a state church in the English sense, he still tried to become closely related to the state through the adopted form of government agencies of the United States into his church organization. To this end, the Episcopal Church in America has framed a “constitution,” which makes its organic system almost identical with the political system of the country, with this difference, that it has no executive power corresponding to the President of the United States 15 . In this correspondence of her church organization with the political organization of the country she undoubtedly finds considerable support, since the American people, highly esteeming their political system, are more favorable and sympathetic to a church that has a similar organization. This explains the fact that it could maintain its original existence on American soil and did not perish after losing its support in the English state 16 . But besides this external feature, the Episcopal Church also has internal features that give it an advantage over many other religious communities in the country. In its essence, it is a compromise between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Having rejected the extremes of the papist system, she at the same time did not go to the opposite extreme - Protestant individualism. Owing to the positive nature of the Anglo-Saxon race, it took the form of moderate Protestantism and settled there. In England, this form found support in the state and therefore it easily became the state religion. If on the one hand in this union she found external support for herself, then on the internal side such a union was tantamount to slavery for her with its inevitable consequences of moral weakening. In America, on the contrary, she, having no state support, for her self-preservation, of necessity, had to rely only on her internal principles and in them look for the source of her vitality. This explains the undoubted fact that the Episcopal Church in the United States is distinguished by much greater vitality compared with Anglicanism. But this in turn leads to a new consequence. Distinguished by its greater internal self-awareness compared to Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church in America necessarily tests with greater courage its internal foundations on which its organism is based. With such bold critical self-examination, her internal organic weakness is clearly revealed. It has no positive principles at its core and the secret of its existence can only be explained by compromise. In dogmatic terms, it oscillates between Protestantism and Catholicism, in the church it seeks dubious support in nationalism. Such a compromise apparently gives it a balance between two extremes, but this balance is fragile and it is maintained only by temporary coincidence with a similar balance in the external conditions of its existence. The American people are produced from a variety of elements, which, entering into an organic combination, create a race alien to extremes and, on the contrary, balanced in its strengths and functions. But this balance is not external, but organic and therefore positive. Meanwhile, the balance in the Episcopal Church, as based on compromise, is only, so to speak, mechanical, external, and as such it does not correspond to the positive, organic balance of the American people. On the contrary, the first attempt to compare the principles underlying the body of the Episcopal Church reveals their complete inconsistency. In 1853, a similar attempt was made and it revealed the complete failure of the Episcopal Church as a religious system that could meet the needs of the American people. In view of the intensifying process of decomposition and fragmentation of Protestantism, the emergence of various forms of unbelief and the strengthening of Roman Catholicism, representatives of the Episcopal Church had a serious question of where to look for salvation from this state of affairs. Naturally they turned to the Episcopal Church itself; but having delved into her inner state, they came to the sad conclusion that she could not, in her present condition, satisfy the religious needs of the American people and was not capable of “doing the work of the Lord in this land and in this age” 17. The result of this self-awareness was that she, having lost faith in her consistency and stability on the foundations on which she is now based, began to look for a more solid support for herself somewhere outside herself, and hence her constant fluctuations and searches for catholicity, which characterize her recent history. Thus, the Episcopal Church, even by its own conscience, cannot meet the religious needs of the American people and therefore cannot become the “church of the future” in the United States. It does not have such positive principles that would correspond to the positive nature of the American people. In this case, there remains only a third contender for the future of the country, namely Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism cherishes the brightest hopes for its future in the United States. As Roman Catholic publicists put it, the future of the North American republic belongs precisely to Roman Catholicism, which alone can lead the people to religious unity and make them as united in religious terms as they are united in political terms 18. The extraordinary successes of Roman Catholicism in the country, which it achieved in the course of one century, seem to justify such hopes. If in one century he managed to rise from insignificance to almost a paramount position in the country and develop an organization before which Protestantism, weakened by internal discord, shudders, then it is natural to expect that, already relying on this powerful organization, he can easily extend his dominion over small Protestant communities and absorb them into his powerful body. But such a conclusion would be hasty and would not correspond to the actual meaning of the premises. The main source of the old spread of Roman Catholicism in the United States was emigration, that is, it owes its increase not to its internal organic growth, but to a purely external process - the growth or gathering of ready-made Catholic masses. This process of increase did not occur at the expense of the American people, but apart from them. Therefore, from this point of view, the past successes of Roman Catholicism, with all their extraordinaryness, have no relation to the religious problem that occupies us regarding which church can become in the future the united church of the united American people, and therefore do not provide a basis for concluding regarding future successes. But Roman Catholicism also has another side to its development. He not only arrived from Europe on American soil, but also tried to acclimatize on it, taking root in the organic environment of the American people themselves. In this respect, it already approaches our problem directly and provides important data for research. Both the success of these attempts and the general receptivity of the American soil towards Roman Catholicism provide direct evidence for our question. This success, viewed from its external side, is also not of great importance, and in numerical terms it is far from forming a solid basis for the entire incoming mass of the Roman Catholic population. But it has another, internal side, and in this regard it deserves serious attention. This is the moral side of success and may serve as an indicator of the general disposition of the American people towards Roman Catholicism. How is this predisposition expressed and what degree of tension does it have in this direction? We have seen that the American people, both in their origin and in their present state, are a Protestant people. The principles of Protestantism received widespread development in it and were expressed in wandering sectarianism. They have even to a large extent embodied themselves in the political institutions of the country and have penetrated into the fabric of public life. From this side, Roman Catholicism, as an opposite religious system, can only meet opposition from the American people, which actually lasts throughout the hundred-year history of its independent life and manifested itself both in indirect legislative measures against Roman Catholicism and in open anti-Catholic movements of the masses. But at the same time, in the very religious Protestant character of the American people, during the various vicissitudes of its historical development, features of the failure of Protestantism in the sense of a religious system corresponding to the basic character of the people were increasingly revealed. His extreme individualism turned out to be in contradiction with the healthy mediocrity of the American character, and when it reached its greatest development, it had to be followed by a reaction in favor of the process of centralization. The people began to be burdened by the fragmentation of their religious state and, in view of the discrepancy between individualism and their character, began to look for a single church that could give authoritative reassurance to his religious feeling, tired of fruitless work, and, taking away from him the unbearable burden of personal responsibility, would be a powerful and infallible leader of him along the path of salvation. With the emergence of the idea of ​​a single church, religious consciousness was looking for that real framework around which fermentation could settle and which would be able to absorb the heterogeneous elements of fermentation into its body and thus create a single church. If during this process many settled on Methodism and the Episcopal Church, then even more began to turn to Roman Catholicism. The latter presented important advantages over the first two in this regard. It had behind it such a historical antiquity that neither Methodism nor the Episcopal Church could equal; and for religious consciousness, tired of the variability of sectarian forms, this historical antiquity represented the most important guarantee of the stability and steadfastness of the principle. He represented such a powerful organization that no Protestant community could develop. Finally, his religious and disciplinary system had all the external signs of a “united” church, which religious consciousness sought in vain in the systems of Protestant communities. In view of such undoubted advantages of Roman Catholicism over Protestant communities, the assumption is inevitable that the inclination of the religious consciousness of the American people, when searching for a unified church, should undoubtedly and irrevocably occur in favor of Roman Catholicism. In reality, this did not happen and cannot happen. Roman Catholicism, while presenting immeasurable advantages compared to Protestant communities in the sense of a holistic, unchanging, historical church, at the same time has many aspects that contradict the religious, mental and social-state meaning of the American people. If the American people are weary of the burden of personal responsibility in the matter of salvation imposed on them by Protestantism, they still have such a developed sense of personal independence that in no case will they tolerate its limitation to such an extent as is inevitable in Roman Catholicism. He longs only for a church which he can freely regard as the supreme tribunal of his personal conscience. If the American people represent a mediocre mental character, then this mediocrity is not such as to tolerate the stubborn denial of the progressive development of thought, with which in their minds the idea of ​​the Roman Catholic Church is inextricably linked. Finally, he feels a complete discrepancy between the principles of Roman Catholicism and its political and social structure. And indeed, in this respect, the Roman Catholic tendency to extreme centralization, with its newest apotheosis in the person of the infallible pope, is in complete contradiction to the historically developed and strengthened sense of the American people 20. It will forever serve as an insurmountable barrier on the path to Roman Catholicism. Individual people, especially those who deeply feel the inadequacy of Protestantism, will move to the Roman Catholic Church, despite its inconsistency with the principles of the social and state life of the people. But the sense of a whole people will never be able to reconcile this contradiction, and therefore Roman Catholicism cannot become that “one church” of the American people, the idea of ​​which vaguely wanders in their religious consciousness. Thus, despite the growing need among the American people to have a single strong church, which in religious terms would become parallel to its state system, among the available religious forms it does not have one that could actually implement its idea. Methodism is too new and unstable in its form and is one of the extreme manifestations of Protestant individualism that plagues the people. The Episcopal Church itself does not have a solid foundation, much less bear the full weight of the American people. Finally, Roman Catholicism, despite its historical stability, in turn sins with the extreme development of the beginning of centralization and, as such, stands in insoluble contradiction with the entire structure of the American worldview. II. The Episcopal Church and its position in the process of religious centralization. The failure of her internal principles and the search for external support. Ritualism and its inner meaning. "The Bankruptcy of Protestantism." The quest for catholicity and the location of true, intact catholicity. The Gravity of the Episcopal Church towards the Orthodox East Of the three main religious forms, the most consistent with the American character is undoubtedly the middle, that is, the Episcopal Church. It is alien to both the extremes of individualism and the opposite extremes of Roman Catholicism, and therefore if any of the above-mentioned churches is destined to become the one church of the one American people, then it is the Episcopal Church. There was already a period in its history when the golden dream was coming true. Even before the outbreak of the Civil War, which served as the final turning point in the consciousness of the American people, signs of fatigue from sectarian fruitless ferment began to be noticed among the people, and many minds, most sensitive to the spirit of the times, sought reassurance in large religious communities. The Episcopal Church, as alien to the excesses of Roman Catholicism, was then most in tune with the emerging mood and began a bountiful harvest. “From 1850 to 1856 the numerical increase of its members far exceeded that of previous periods. The ranks of its clergy grew stronger both in number and influence. The spirit of unparalleled activity apparently arose in her, and above all, there was a noticeable disposition in her to gather around her other Protestant confessions and unite them with herself into one church body. This arrangement found approval from outside her flock. many of those who had never yet called themselves by any distinctive Christian name, carried away by its dignity and order, began to look upon it as the most desirable of all Protestant communities. The noble dissenters turned their gaze to her, seeking refuge from that schismatic abyss in which their various boats were already almost capsized. Great reciprocity on both sides and complete sympathy for the movement on her part was all that was apparently necessary to create that unity for which fragmented Christianity had so long craved. It was the most enjoyable moment for her. The iron was hot for forging. The wheat is ripe for harvest. The deep world provided favorable conditions for discussion and exploration. The spirit of organic life was kindled among the people and people showed an inclination towards closer rapprochement with each other. All that was needed was a strong will and a skillful hand to remove some of the remaining obstacles, and the triumph of Episcopalism in the country could be assured." 21 This important moment in the history of Episcopalism, however, did not lead to the results that could have been expected. The Episcopal Church, owing to this upsurge of spirit within itself and the general demand of the time, was of necessity, before embarking on the great mission of uniting Christian communities, to carefully examine its internal capacity for such a mission. This necessity was recognized by its best representatives, and from them a number of memorials, which were mentioned above, were sent to the 1853 convention. From these memoirs it is clear that if there was a great demand of religious consciousness for a church that could satisfy the “great moral and social needs of the time” 22, then the more clearly the insolvency of the Episcopal Church in relation to their satisfaction appeared. The demands of time forced us to delve deeper into the essence of episcopalism, and with this internal analysis, all the instability of its foundations was revealed. Being based on a compromise between two extremes, it was still able to maintain a balance between them in the ordinary calm state of things. But with the strong movement that began around her in the 50s, she found herself in a difficult situation. The foundations represented by the compromise were too precarious and fragile to withstand the strong pressure of the popular spirit. They required strong positive foundations, and these were not found in the Episcopal Church. And so she, realizing the greatness of the request addressed to her and at the same time feeling her weakness and inadequacy in the duty of satisfying it, hesitated at her very core. The more she needed positive foundations, the more the unreliability of her own foundations appeared to her. Such an uncertain and abnormal state could not be permanent. She had to find a way out of it. If one's own foundations were weak, then it was necessary to look for them outside oneself. Before it, on the one hand, there was Protestantism and on the other, Roman Catholicism. The first could not serve as a support for episcopalism because he himself suffered from instability. Thus, only Roman Catholicism remained. But to seek support in Roman Catholicism for Episcopalism meant abandoning itself and erasing its past history. It arose as a protest against the abnormal development of Roman Catholicism and therefore accepting what was rejected would be an unconditional denial of one’s right to exist. And it had the right to exist even as an external balance for extremes. If it was now unstable in its foundations, it only meant that it had not established a balance between extremes with sufficient accuracy and, denying extreme Protestantism and extreme papism, did not apply the principle of balance with sufficient consistency and therefore did not perceive the essential elements that constitute a necessary condition for a lasting existence. This inevitable process of thought led the more consistent representatives of the Episcopal Church to a careful analysis of its central position, and they discovered that the whole reason for the instability of Episcopalism was that, while it had rejected Roman Catholicism, it could not refrain from denying such truths as constitute the essential elements of church life, and thus did not maintain itself in the true central point, but leaned toward Protestantism. As soon as the true cause of the unstable position of Episcopalism was discovered, the desire to eliminate it naturally arose. If this reason was an immoderate inclination towards Protestantism, then of course the only means left to establish balance was to move the center of gravity towards Roman Catholicism. And so the process of such movement really began, and it was expressed in a well-known movement called ritualism. Ritualism, considered in its general terms, is precisely a reaction against the immoderate invasion of Protestant principles into the system of episcopalism. It reveals two directions, which, however, have the same common goal. One of them wants to restore in Episcopalism only those principles and forms by which it was distinguished in the age of the Reformation and from which over time it deviated towards Protestantism. The other is not limited to this and has in mind to restore in the church those forms that existed in it even before the advent of Anglicanism 23 . Both directions converge in the consciousness that present-day episcopalism is not a true expression of that church movement, which was only a limitation of the abuses of Roman Catholicism, but has gone to the undesirable extreme of Protestantism and thus has deviated from the essential principles of true church life. The so-called "XXXIX members" which constitute the symbolic expression of the essence of the creed of Episcopalism, according to the ritualists, are purely "Protestant members attached to the Catholic liturgy" 24 and as such must be rejected or radically revised. So far, these views have not yet been expressed legally in any formal definitions, but in practice they have already been widely used. The ritualistic churches in New York, the main center of American ritualism, have significantly transformed their worship, and it is striking in the pomp and beauty of its forms, by which it thus differs significantly from the Protestantized simplicity of ordinary Episcopal churches. When transforming worship, ritualistic churches naturally had in mind ancient Anglicanism or even Roman Catholic forms, and therefore the liturgical and ritual side in them is very similar to Roman Catholic worship, and in essence differs only in that it is performed not in Latin, but in English. Lush robes, icons, crosses, incense - all of this bears the Roman Catholic imprint 25. But ritualism is not limited only to the restoration of external forms lost in the Protestant movement, but also tries to conform the very teachings of the church with those true principles from which episcopalism has shied away. Thus, ritualism, contrary to the symbolic book of Episcopalism, recognizes all seven sacraments, allows confession, recognizes transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, the invocation of saints, prayers for the dead and the foundations of celibate monastic life 26 . What is ritualism in its inner essence? This is obviously a movement towards those forms and principles of true church life, deviation from which for the consciousness of a certain part of Episcopalians began to seem like sectarian delusion, extreme Protestantism and, therefore, a denial of the essential elements of life in the true Christian church. But such a movement, in order to realize its basic idea, must have in mind not only the general ideal of true church life, but also a more or less specific implementation of it, with which it could be consistent in its direction. Otherwise, you will either move or be in a constant process of oscillation, or go to an undesirable extreme. This question is of deep vital importance for ritualism and it seriously occupies the leading minds of its best representatives. The entire fate of ritualism depends on this or that decision, and ritualism has more than once made an attempt to resolve this issue for its consciousness. In the 60s, when the spirit of the time with particular insistence raised questions about the direction of the religious consciousness of the American people, ritualism showed extraordinary vitality among itself. If pure episcopalism turned out to be untenable in the face of the demands of the time, then ritualism tried to take its place and, as a “catholic” church, opened its arms to tired and exhausted Protestantism. Its preachers, with remarkable sensitivity, noticed the mood of the times and openly began to smash Protestantism as a completely failed and even false movement, and proclaimed that the only salvation could only be a return to “Catholicism,” as a true expression of true church-religious life. A particularly prominent representative of such preaching was the famous New York Episcopal preacher with a ritualistic overtone, Dr. Ewer. In the fall of 1868, he delivered a series of sermons in which, with remarkable strength and courage, they proclaimed the complete failure of Protestantism in satisfying the needs of the religious spirit of mankind and depicted in bright colors the sad state of church life in the field of Protestantism. These sermons of his, under the general title: “The Failure of Protestantism” (bankruptcy of Protestantism), made a deep impression on American society 27 and the newspapers gave an accurate shorthand account of them. They represent a very characteristic expression both of the religious condition of the American people in general, and especially of that movement which has degenerated from dissatisfaction with this condition. They express with extraordinary force the thirst of the American religious spirit for that true catholicity, which it seeks in vain among the religious forms existing in America. In this sense, it is directly related to our subject and therefore we consider it necessary to briefly outline their main thoughts 28. The current religious state of the American people, according to the preacher, is experiencing one of those crises that have occurred from time to time in the religious and church life of mankind as a result of deviation from the true principles of Christianity. Even in the first centuries of Christianity, one of these crises occurred - namely the emergence of Arianism, and the consequence of this crisis was that “intact Christianity rebelled in its strength against error, and the true, pure, apostolic faith was thus restored and established.” In the Middle Ages another crisis came. “Roman errors slowly grew and developed, until finally, in the 11th century, serious Catholics in the eastern part of the church, no longer able to bear the spreading evils, rose up in their majesty to condemn them; and the Orthodox Eastern (or Greek) Church decided to interrupt communication with Rome, which separation continues to this day” 29. Meanwhile, in the Roman part of Christianity, the same errors continued to grow and new ones were added to them, until finally, in the 15th century, serious people throughout the West in their greatness rebelled against them, and carried out the “so-called reformation.” The dominance of Protestantism came, but the crises did not stop with it. On the contrary, they took on a worse form. Protestantism, having rejected the solid principles of the church, began to take the slippery path of rationalism, and from here, in addition to continuous minor crises, a general and most terrible crisis is being prepared for the entire religious-Christian consciousness. Among him, unbelief grows and develops, practical life is freed from the influence of religious-Christian principles and the “communion of saints” is destroyed. It is too one-sided in its narrow individualism and too cold for religious enthusiasm, so that there is no outlet for those naturally enthusiastic persons who could find their happiness only in a complete renunciation of the drab practical life in order to devote themselves to the service of the highest divine ideal (monasticism). Due to the one-sided abstraction of its principles, it turned out to be inaccessible to the masses and therefore degenerated into aristocracy with brilliant preaching and high rents for church seats 30. But even in the most intelligent classes, its wandering instability develops indifferentism, as a result of which many, tired of the variability of forms, reject all forms of church life and live by one common Christianity, getting lost in its foggy uncertainty 31 . Thus, Protestantism itself shows its pathetic inability to satisfy the religious needs of mankind. He constitutes a completely unsuccessful and harmful movement and is preparing a terrible crisis. We need to seek salvation from it. But this does not mean that salvation from it should be sought in novelism. “This would mean returning from an evil effect to the cause of all evil 32. No, salvation must be sought “in the restoration of the ancient, catholic and apostolic foundations, free from the admixture of Roman errors.” The signs of the times show the beginning of a movement in this direction, a movement towards the restoration of "the Catholic Church in its continuous life as a divine institution endowed with the highest authority and adapted to the needs of all ages" 33 . But what is the “Catholic Church”? Does it exist on earth, and if so, where? “The Catholic Church is a living organism, universal in space and universal in time until Christ himself.” She is a living body with one organic head; a visible body with an invisible life, and this life, this soul of the church is Christ 34. As a visible, living organism, it obviously must exist in space and time. Protestant communities cannot be this organism, since their historical life does not go back to the very source of the origin of the church, as a continuously living and developing organism. “But suppose I turn to our (Episcopal) church. I find that it, as an organism, with its hierarchy and church life, goes back to the Middle Ages of England, and through the early period of Britain - even to the time of the apostles. There seems to be something catholic here. But don't rush. I can also trace the life of the Roman Church back to the apostles continuously. The same feature of continuous existence before the apostles is found in the Greek Church" 35 . If you look closely at these three churches, you will find that there are important differences between them. “Rome has a pope and the cult of St. Mary the Ever-Virgin, which is not present in the Greek and Anglican organisms” 36. But if we look even more closely, we will notice that although these three churches - Anglican, Greek and Roman - differ in some respects, they are surprisingly similar in everything else. “All three have a hierarchy of bishops, priests and deacons. All have a sacred altar of terrible sacrifice as a central purpose in their churches. All have vested clergy. Everyone has saints' days and solemn church times. Everyone has a ritual side to worship. All trace their lives back to the first century. All have splendid ceremonies and processions; the Greeks are the most brilliant, the Romans less and the Anglicans even less. Everyone recognizes the authority of general councils. All have the same apostolic succession and the same sacraments. Here in this way I begin to find the Catholic Church. Those few features in which the Greek, Anglican and Roman churches differ from one another are simply local; yet the many features in which they converge form for me visibly, firmly and distinctly the great Catholic Church; united in space as in an organism, and united in time; located equally in Russia, and in Italy, and in England, and in America, in Mexico, in Germany and Brazil - everywhere, located also in the nineteenth century, and also in the Middle Ages, and in the early periods - invariably and unchangeably. Everything in the Anglican, Greek and Roman communities that is contained by all three in general and that was contained by them everywhere, always and by all - that is, catholic. Everything is different, every feature that we have, but Rome and Eastern Christians do not have, or that Rome has, but we and the Greeks do not have, or that the Greeks have, but we and Rome do not have - that is, simply local private, and not catholic.” Trying to give a visual explanation of his theory, Ewer turns to the well-known comparison of a church with a tree. “For simplicity,” he says, let’s take a tree. Eight feet above the ground the trunk stands single and indivisible. Around the ninth foot it splits into two main branches. We will call the eastern branch the Greek branch, and the western branch we will call the Latin branch. Six feet higher on the Latin branch, that is, fifteen feet above the ground, this western branch divides into two large branches. We will call the extreme of them the Anglican branch, and the other we will call the Roman branch. These two branches and the Greek branch go up to 19 1/2 feet from the soil. And thus there are three great branches, each with its own foliage, the Anglican in the west, the Roman in the center and the Greek in the east. If you now look only at the top of the tree, you will see three separate groups of vegetation, although the foliage and color are the same. But look at the whole tree and you will see the symbol of the Catholic Church, one organism from root to top” 37. The branching did not break the unity. But why did these three churches interrupt all communications and communications between themselves? “In reality, the unity of the organism has not been broken; the communication between its three parts is only interrupted for a time, until that differentiation takes place in the one church of God, which, as Spencer amazingly shows, is the law of all growth; differentiation, which in its final phase appears not as complete separation, but as final unity in diversity, harmony of subordinate parts. Thus we have found what the Catholic Church is." 38 The present discourse of the Honorable Dr. Ewer 39 expressively depicts the state of the religious spirit of the American people—especially the Episcopalian community. This is a complete consciousness of the inconsistency of those religious principles by which he currently lives, and a thirst for the higher principles of “catholicity”. Tired of the fragmentation and variability of the forms of Protestantism, he seeks strong unity, a great church body, a single catholic church 40. But in the search for this catholicity, at the same time, one is struck by the uncertainty of consciousness, where exactly one can find pure catholicity and in what way to come to it. Realizing the abnormality of the current situation, the religious spirit of the American people instinctively guesses where it can find a saving outcome, and it looks for it in “catholicity,” but catholicity itself is only instinctively sensed by them, and there is still no clear and distinct consciousness in it that could directly indicate to it the desired outcome. Ewer, through his analytical process of thought, comes to the recognition of catholicity in the three main church communities, namely Anglican, Greek and Roman. From a certain point of view, he is right, but the catholicity found in this way represents something so vague, impersonal and organically separated that for concrete consciousness it does not represent any tangible guarantee of the consistency of such catholicity as the organic, living body of the church. Meanwhile, in the very process of his thinking there is data for a more satisfactory solution to the problem. The process of religious and ecclesiastical development took place through a series of crises that occurred as a result of the deviation of this development from the original pure catholicity. When deviation threatened with dangerous consequences for the church, the parts of it that were most sensitive to the truth rebelled against such deviation and isolated themselves from the erring one. This separation, judging by its origin, obviously had as its goal the better preservation of intact catholicity. The first phase of this isolation was expressed in the separation of the Eastern Church, which was the first to recognize the deviation of the Roman Church from the path of true development. Meanwhile, the deviation in the erring part, namely the Roman Church, continued to increase, until finally other parts, obviously less sensitive to the truth than the first separated part, became aware of this deviation, and also separated from the erring part. This is how Anglicanism came about. Thus we have one church steadily developing along a false path, and two other churches that rebelled against such error and separated from it to maintain pure catholicity. But they separated at different times. The first separated as soon as deviations from the truth began to be noticed in the Roman Church, and the second lived for centuries in unity with the obviously erring church and separated from it only when the error became obviously unbearable. Both churches separated in order to preserve the pure, undamaged Catholic faith. But from this it is natural that the catholic faith can be found in greater integrity and purity in that church, which turned out to be most valuable in preserving the true and intact faith and hastened to isolate itself at the first signs of deviation from the truth in the Roman Church. The second, meanwhile, having lived for centuries in an organic connection with the erring one, was of necessity itself imbued with error, and when it finally realized the abnormality of the development of the Roman Church, simple separation was no longer enough for it to preserve catholicity; it had to not only separate, but also cleanse itself from the corrupted errors, and hence Anglicanism was not only a separated church, but also a Protestant one. Due to the reaction against the intensified evil, he had to not only separate from Roman Catholicism, but also push away from it, and from here he could not resist pure catholicity and went into Protestantism. But Protestantism is the opposite and most dangerous delusion. It does not satisfy the religious spirit of humanity, which yearns for catholicity. Thus, the only outcome remains is to turn to the church that was the first to recognize the deviation from the truth and set itself apart to preserve it. By its separation, it protected itself from participating in the further development of the wrong direction and did not experience the crisis that led to Protestantism. If, therefore, pure, undamaged catholicity still exists anywhere, then it must exist in that very church that was the first to recognize error and set itself apart from it. As Yuer and others admit, this catholicity exists. If so, then the direct and natural consequence of the very analytical process of Ewer's thought can only be that catholicity, in its pure truth, exists only in the Eastern Church. Anglicanism, as having fed on the juices of an infected organism, in its effort to free itself from them, deviated into Protestantism. Roman Catholicism, as the cause of all these crises, is itself an infected organism. What remains is only that organic part that became isolated at a time when deviation from the truth had just arisen, and in it lies pure catholicity. This part is the holy Eastern Catholic Church. As having retained pure and intact catholicity within itself, it is the organic center of the true Catholic faith, and from this center other church communities can perceive pure catholicity - through the coordination of their religious principles with its catholic principles. Such catholicity, represented by the Eastern Church, is not an abstract concept, which Ewer came to accept, but is a living, concrete truth, embodied in the living, historical and integral organism of the church. Thus, Yuer should have only further carried out his analysis, to his last natural conclusions, and instead of an indefinite catholicity, he would have come to a specific church organism that retained this catholicity from those very times when, as a result of the error that began to develop, it was necessary to isolate it and isolate it from the process of false development. But if Ewer did not come to such a natural and logical conclusion, then the general consciousness of the entire Episcopal Church in America involuntarily leans towards it. Episcopalism, as we said above and as defined by Ewer, is “the Catholic Church developed on Protestant principles” 41 . As based on a compromise between two opposing principles - Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, it contains an internal contradiction that makes itself felt with any more or less deep church-religious movement. In ordinary times it still apparently shows holistic and organic vitality, but as soon as any period comes with a new strong demand from church-religious life, its internal inconsistency is immediately revealed. The opposing elements that make it up show their irreconcilable discord and the entire church body is in danger of disintegration. Its heterogeneous parts cease organic activity and at the same time clearly show a tendency towards assimilation with integral organisms that stand outside of episcopalism. From here many Episcopal priests convert to Roman Catholicism, and many laymen convert to extreme Protestantism. In the general direction of the community the same discord is found, and while one party gravitates towards Roman Catholicism, the other shows no less inclination towards Protestantism. The expression of the first is ritualism, and the second finds its expression in the so-called “reformed Episcopal Church,” which in its origins is nothing more than Protestantism carried beyond ordinary episcopalism 42 . In view of this state of Episcopalism, the words of the Roman Catholic publicist who says: “The Episcopal Church must work either for us or for Protestantism receive some justification. She has no field of her own to harvest, and no middle ground for an honest spirit. She has already sent many gifted and pure souls to the house of truth and purity, and we Catholics daily receive those whom she brought to our gates” 43. But the organism, although suffering from discord between the essential elements and principles of life, still has within itself the instinct of self-preservation, and therefore episcopalism, feeling its internal inconsistency, seeks support outside. If its individual members, unable to bear the contradiction of the principles that make up the Episcopal Church, seek inner reconciliation and tranquility in the perception of these principles in their separate existence and full expression and therefore accept either Protestantism or Roman Catholicism, then for the whole organism such an outcome is of course impossible and would be tantamount to self-denial or suicide, against which the spark of organic life rebelling within it rebels. Not having sufficiently solid ground under itself, episcopalism seeks it outward, and at the same time, naturally, it could only turn to where it could find positive principles, without the extremes of Protestantism or Roman Catholicism. And he turned to the Orthodox East. While in Protestantism the flickering deceptive lights of religious animation gradually give way to the darkness of rationalism, and in Roman Catholicism the progressive development of extreme papism increasingly Latinizes Catholic Christianity, in the east the bright sun of pure, Catholic Christianity invariably continues to shine, and its rays welcomingly beckon and caress all those seeking light. Only for this reason did Episcopalism turn its gaze to the east, so I immediately realized that if anywhere the light of catholicity could come to fragmented Christianity, it would only be from the east. Ex Oriente lax. In this life-giving light, the Episcopal Church saw hope for its own existence, and a passionate desire arose in it to become closer to the source of this light. Hence a number of attempts on the part of Episcopalism to enter into closer communion with the Orthodox Church of the East. III. Attempts of the Episcopal Church to rapprochement with the Orthodox East, Memorial of the “Association of the Eastern Church” and the attitude of the general conventions of 1868–1874 to the issue of the unity of churches. "Greek-Russian Committee" and its activities. The external and internal sides of these attempts, the attitude of Roman Catholic literature towards them and the anxiety in the camp of Roman Catholicism. Possible significance of the fact of church unity for the mission of Orthodoxy in America. Fundamentals of Unity. Conclusion. The desire of Episcopalism for unity with the Orthodox East manifested itself with particular force precisely during the period when the trend of religious and political unity began to assert itself with particular persistence in the minds of the American people, when the idea of ​​a single strong church began to demand actual implementation, and when at the same time the inability of existing churches and sects to embody this idea was most clearly revealed. In the same year that Dr. Ewer's bold speeches were heard about the bankruptcy of Protestantism and the need to seek salvation in catholicity, the usual triennial general convention of the Protestant-Episcopal Church in America met in the fall of the same year. The venerable assembly of prelates and laity of the Episcopal Church was already predisposed in its sympathies towards the East, and therefore the question of the attitude towards the Orthodox East was already raised for it at the right time; but the acceleration of his decision was further facilitated by the fact that members of the Anglican Church, which also recognized the need for unity with the East, in order to give their aspiration a more realistic basis, decided to instill the initiative for actual relations on this subject with the American Episcopal Church, as more independent in its activities. At the general convention of 1868, the English society, The Eastern Church Association, submitted a long memorial on this subject. “Seeing, says the memorial, that during the last few years the great Head of the Church was pleased to put into the hearts of people, in different parts of Christianity, belonging to different religious communities, which had long been in discord, a deep conviction that this division is contrary to the will of Him who is the Ruler of the world and the Friend of unity, and that it arose in many cases not so much from a significant difference in the fundamentals of faith, but from mutual unfamiliarity and misunderstanding, and most of all from a lack mutual love, and realizing that such division between Christians currently serves as one of the main reasons for the spread of unbelief and irreligion and the main obstacle to the salvation of souls; and thinking also that it is the solemn duty of all who mourn the division of Christianity to endeavor, so far as it depends on them, to reunite them and restore the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, your memorialists respectfully desire to call the attention of the venerable assembly to (i) what has already been done, by God's help, to achieve this holy purpose, and (2) to reasons which seem to indicate that, the church of America is especially equipped by Divine providence to take the initiative at the critical moment for taking the most desirable measures for the restoration of communion between the Anglican Communion and the great Orthodox churches of Russia, Constantinople and Greece" 44. The restoration of communion seems desirable with all Christian denominations, but the attention of the episcopal assembly is directed primarily to the East, and this for the following reason. “While, continue the memorialists, the differences between us and the Church of Rome are so great that there is no hope or efforts for reunification with it would be worse than useless, such an insurmountable obstacle does not exist in relation to rapprochement with the East, and that therefore, with the help of God, it would be possible to restore the unity of the churches in this direction. In any case, this consciousness is worth trying. Obviously, the first step in this unknown field of work must be to smooth the ground for future research, to remove the obstacles placed in the way by various prejudices, misunderstandings and ignorance, to become acquainted with the feelings of our Eastern brothers towards us and to make our desires clear to them. It was with this very purpose that the named society was formed, and it has already worked considerably in this regard, but at the same time, as indicated by experience, it came to the conviction that the American Episcopal Church is the most suitable for accomplishing the great work of restoring the unity of churches. The Memorialists “most respectfully declare that the American Church is more capable of taking the initiative in this delicate subject than the Church of England. Irreplaceable by state control, independent in its ecclesiastical and civil organization, it seems to be designed by Providence itself to pave the way for the union not only of the state but also of the churches into a sacred federal union. The continuous friendly relations between Russia and the United States and the close commercial relations between the two countries give confidence that these proposals on the part of the American Church for reunification would be favorably received by the Russian Government, both ecclesiastical and civil, and at the same time, no doubt, would also be pleasing to the majority of the members of the American Church, who at their diocesan conventions have already expressed a lively interest in the subject. Another important motive for taking action lies in the actual proximity of the two churches in the Pacific coast region recently ceded by Russia to the American government. This area contains many Orthodox inhabitants and there has long been a Russian mission in the Aleutian Islands. Is it not imperative for the American church to care for these sheep without a shepherd, without violating the rights of their recognized spiritual authorities?” 46. The venerable meeting of representatives of the Episcopal Church, as we said above, was already prepared by the very demands of the time for the question that was so insistently proposed by the memorial of the “Association of the Eastern Church,” and therefore naturally it could not be left without one or another solution. But its resolution could not take place in this state of affairs. Despite the urgency of the need to resolve it, this issue was at the same time extremely difficult. History has not developed any preparatory premises for it, except the very consciousness of the need for resolution. It was necessary to first inherit the logical and historical data on which the question itself is based, so that one could begin to actually implement the desire for unity with the Orthodox East. Without such research, it could only be a pia desideria, without any guarantee of achieving practical results. But for such work, a special body was needed that would specifically devote itself to the development of preparatory data as the necessary material for resolving the main issue. Such a body did not exist in the Episcopal Church, and therefore one had to be created. The idea of ​​such an organ was primarily the result of the memory of the said association. When the memorial was proposed for discussion at the convention, it met with energetic approval. A resolution on the issue of church unity was submitted to the meeting and it was adopted by both houses of the convention in the following wording: · Since the restoration of the unity of the church is a matter of great importance, for without the restoration of unity it is impossible for it to perfectly fulfill its mission in the world, and · Since, in the opinion of many, the signs of the times clearly indicate a strong and constant increase in the desire among the churches to see such unity restored, · Decreed: in agreement with the house of bishops, that a joint committee of the two houses constituting a general convention, composed of an equal number of bishops, presbyters and laymen, should be appointed as the organ of communication with the other branches of the church and with the various Christian communities who desire information or communications on this subject. The said committee shall be called: the Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America for the Unity of the Churches."47 Having taken the first significant and necessary step towards resolving the issue, namely by founding a special body for this, the general concept at the same time tried to outline the first point in the development of the subject itself. She took into account the indication of the memorial of the “Association of the Eastern Church” on the proximity of the Orthodox Church to the Episcopal Church, which actually touch each other on the American mainland, and therefore adopted the following resolution: · Since mutual friendship happily exists and is constantly increasing between the Russian and American peoples, and the cordial approach of the entire Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Eastern Church to better mutual understanding and recognition as equal integral branches of the Catholic Church of Christ requires careful care on both sides to avoid misunderstandings as much as possible, and in view of the request of the Lower House in England to the High: to take measures to open relations with the Eastern Patriarchs and metropolitans with the aim of establishing such a relationship between the two communities as to enable the laity and clergy of both to participate in each other’s sacraments and rites, without breaking ties with their own church, then "Determined: in a house of ecclesiastical and temporal deputies assembled in general convention to request the house of bishops to take such measures as it in its wisdom may find best, not only to promote more intimate relations and better mutual acquaintance of each other between our and the eastern communities, but especially to provide for the spiritual needs of our people who will settle in the territory of Alaska, with due respect for the rights and dignity of the Russian Church" 48 . The practical results of the resolutions and measures adopted by the convention were to be revealed at the next regular convention. In the intervening three years, the newly founded body on the issue of church unity began energetic relations with the churches of the east. The Special Committee for the Unity of Churches, called the “Russian-Greek Committee,” not only carried out written communications, but also sent a deputation to the east to closely familiarize itself with the state of the Orthodox East and the attitude of the Orthodox Church to episcopalism. The Committee had great consolation in the fact that the East, for its part, responded with lively sympathy to the search for church truth on its part: the patriarchs and metropolitans of the Eastern churches ardently expressed their desire to see unity of the restored churches and, for their part, proposed various means, measures and conditions for this. When a new regular general convention met in 1871, the Russian-Greek committee already had a supply of material that shed some light on the relationship of the Orthodox East to the Episcopal Church, which was seeking unity with it. The data collected by the committee made an encouraging impression on the convention, and the House of Bishops introduced the following resolution: · Decided: in agreement with the House of Ecclesiastical and Temporal Deputies, that in view of the heartfelt reciprocal statements of fraternal respect so often received over the past three years from the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Metropolitan of Athens and the Holy Governing Synod of the Orthodox Russian Church by the prelates of the Church of England and representatives of this (American) Church, both spiritual and temporal, she gratefully accepts friendly the act by which the authorities of the holy Orthodox Church have deigned to permit the holy rite of burial for the dead of our community, and that it earnestly desires the continuation and increase of such fraternal relations and the mutual good practice of love; · Decided that the committee should continue to exist in order to communicate with the Holy Orthodox Church of the East and · Determined that the said committee is also entrusted with the duty to take further measures to acquire and communicate such information as may be mutually important and interesting for this church and the Holy Orthodox Church of the East, and to publish them when it is found necessary and prudent” 49. Relations continued actively during the next three years. The messages of the representatives of the Orthodox East were even more willing to declare sympathy for the holy aspiration of the Episcopal Church, and the Russian-Greek committee considered the work of preparatory work on the question of church unity to be so far advanced that its further continuation exceeded its original powers and it wished to transfer it to a more competent body - the bishops. At the general convention of 1874, the Russian-Greek committee introduced the following resolution: · Determined that the general convention had great satisfaction in knowing the love and brotherly tone of the messages received from Anthimus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Sophronius of Alexandria, Hierotheus of Antioch, Theophilus Metropolitan of Athens, Chairman of the Holy Synod of Greece, in response to the message of action of the general convention sent through the joint committee; · Determined that we believe that the establishment of full and free communication and mutual relations of Christian brotherhood between the great Eastern churches and our own is daily increasing in importance and hope, and we heartily pray to the Supreme Head of the church that His Spirit will guide our counsels so as to remove on both sides all obstacles which pride, prejudice, or the error of human weakness, may present to hinder its accomplishment; · Determined that we desire the continuation and increase of friendly relations with our brothers of the holy Eastern Churches, in full confidence that on both sides there will be full recognition of all feelings and rights that may present dangers from undue or unconscious invasion; · It was determined that since the upcoming business in the case of relations will consist mainly of communication and communication with the hierarchy of the various branches of the Holy Eastern Church, which can be more conveniently done by the bishops of the church in cases that arise, the joint committee asked to be dismissed from further handling of this subject” 50. With the cessation of the Russian-Greek Committee, one period of actual attempt by the American Episcopal Church to reunite with the Orthodox East ended. Since the further phase of the development of this striving has not yet been expressed in any more or less definite and tangible facts, then in understanding the nature of this striving we can and should for the time being limit ourselves only to this first period. If we look at the matter from the outside, the results of the attempts do not represent anything that could be considered of more or less importance for the great question. All the more important is its inner side. Both the very fact of the formation of a special body for relations with the Orthodox East and its activities show how strong the consciousness in the Episcopal Church of the need to seek support for itself in the East. Its meaning appears most clearly from the reviews that accompanied these attempts in the country's Roman Catholic press. Roman Catholicism itself claims a primacy role in the North American republic and cherishes the dream that it will become the unified future church of the country. He is therefore extremely jealous of all other denominations and communities that make the same claims. The Episcopal Church is one of his first rivals in this respect, and he therefore follows its movements with more vigilance than all others. But at the same time, he fully understands that, with her own strengths, she is far from adequate to her claims to the leading church-religious role in the country. Moreover, Roman Catholicism even finds that, with its existing forces and in its current state, it has only enough significance in the country to serve as an intermediary link for uniting the American people under the banner of Roman Catholicism. According to an authoritative Roman Catholic publicist, the Episcopal Church has a positively providential significance for the Roman Catholic Church and is intended by Providence itself to serve as a transition point to Roman Catholicism for all those seeking church truth. The prejudice against Roman Catholicism itself is so great and long-standing that many seekers of truth would never have entered the fold of this church if there had not been a transitional stage in the form of episcopalism. Finding no satisfaction in Protestantism and at the same time hating Roman Catholicism, they choose the Episcopal Church, apparently alien to both extremes. But having recognized the instability of its beginnings, they then, with greater ease and consistency, switch to Roman Catholicism 51. In view of this importance of the Episcopal Church for the purposes of Roman Catholicism, it is very important for the latter that it should continue to exist in its present precarious form, and therefore he tries in every possible way to keep it in an isolated state and to put all possible obstacles to its aspirations for reunification with other stronger and more positive church bodies, in which it could find reliable support for its own independent existence. Therefore, when the Episcopal Church turned to the Orthodox East, a strong commotion occurred in Roman Catholicism, the Roman Catholic press sounded the alarm and came out fully armed to combat the dangerous tendency of episcopalism. The magazines are full of articles that are closely related to the burning issue and all aimed at one goal - to prove the impossibility of uniting the Episcopal Church with the Orthodox Church and to expose the historical and dogmatic inconsistency of the latter, which allegedly itself is outliving its history and can find salvation only in the bosom of Roman Catholicism 52 . Not considering its own forces sufficient, the American press put forward the reserves of the French Jesuits, and among other things, to humiliate the Orthodox Church, it put into circulation the well-known malicious pamphlet of the Orthodox apostate Jesuit Prince Gagarin about the Russian clergy 53 and published a whole book about the current state of the Russian Church, in which someone, hiding behind the vague name of “a former inhabitant of Russia, with Jesuitical subtlety and dexterity makes a selection facts, skillfully aimed again at proving the impossibility of uniting the Episcopal Church with the Orthodox Church" 54 . In all this literature, along with the proof of the impossibility of episcopalism to find recognition in the East, the idea that the East itself is in the process of church decay, itself must look for support outside, and that the common sense of its “best sons” has long shown where to look for support and salvation. As if factual confirmation of this idea was provided by extensive biographical literature. It shows a number of “valiant sons of the East,” who, having learned the “errors of the schismatic church,” turned to the unchanging mother of truth, that is, to the bosom of Roman Catholicism, and thereby actually proved not only the inability of Orthodoxy to satisfy the religious needs of the best people, but also outlined and paved the way for the entire East to the feet of the Vicar of Christ on earth 55. The apostates of Orthodoxy were put forward as great heroes of truth and presented as valiant pioneers of church truth, and all this for the teaching and edification of Episcopalians, who declared a dangerous tendency in their desire for reunification with the “schismatic” East. No matter how tendentious the literature presented is and no matter how obvious its ulterior thoughts and goals, it at least externally retains a mask of decency and decency, with some exceptions. But the question was obviously too important for Roman Catholicism to allow it to hide its excitement under the guise of scientific or literary calm. Therefore, he also directly launched a polemic against the aspirations of the Episcopalians, and here he fully revealed his fears for the implementation of the dangerous aspirations of Episcopalism. The Roman Catholic press, with polemical and sarcastic fervour, began to pursue the Episcopalians in their general assemblies, and even the usually respectable and reserved magazine (Catholic World) stooped in this regard to feuilleton clowning in its articles regarding the determinations of these assemblies regarding relations with the East. Since the discovery of an Eastern tendency in Episcopalism, not a single convention has passed that the said magazine did not persecute with ridicule in articles specially devoted to them. Regarding the definitions of the general convention of 1868, he said, among other things: “In its relations with other Christian denominations, the Episcopal Church is especially unhappy. It has no fellowship with any community in the whole world. It withdraws from other Protestant sects on the grounds that they are irregular, and calls itself a branch of the Catholic Church, that is, those who speak for it call it by this name. The other branches are the Eastern Church and the Roman Catholic Church; but at least that is what those who say anything about this theory of branches say. With these other branches the Episcopal Church has no fellowship, and in all likelihood never will. There is nothing to say about the Roman Catholic Church, for its language and actions have always been decisive and clear. But the eastern branches also condemned Anglican doctrine and orders more explicitly than the Episcopalians condemned their Protestant brethren. There has not been a single case where a Greek bishop agreed to give communion to a member of the Anglican branch without renouncing his errors; and the rejection of the ordination of Anglican priests is as certain in the East as in the West. Moreover, the doctrines specifically condemned by the XXXIX members are as firmly held by the eastern branches as by the western. Why are our high-church friends begging for patronage from the Greek Church? It won't help them. They can walk on their faces before the Metropolitan of Moscow and arrange compromises; but although, like a gentleman, he will treat them kindly, he will have a low opinion of them and will say in his heart: gentlemen, if you do not have your own legs to stand on, then it seems to me it would be better for you to sit down. “The whole attention of the Episcopalians, says the same Roman Catholic body, is devoted to the East, and if they found there even a fleeting smile, as if as a sign of recognition, it would rejoice their hearts. Now perhaps they will get it, because they have already gone so far as to even recognize the jurisdiction of the Greek Church in Alaska" 57 . By the General Convention of 1871, the Greek-Russian committee had already presented some factual material about the sympathy of the East for the aspirations of the Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic journal continued to spitefully mock: “Another thing that occupies us is the greatness of the work again piled on the committee, which must seek unity with the Eastern heretical churches. In this respect, beyond the exchange of pleasantries, so little has been done that we fear that the means are inadequate to the end. The Anglicans have already declared their willingness to throw out the Filioque from the symbol and thus abandon the doctrine of the Trinity, but this apparently does not bring these two or four communities closer together. The Eastern churches also call the Anglican heretical, and say that they have no dedication, while the latter lie in complete humiliation before the bishops of Constantinople and St. Petersburg, and ask for the slightest smile of recognition. We do not think that the committee has done its job, and like the prophet who urged the priests of Baal, we ask them to keep up. These venerable patriarchs may be sleeping or absent on the road” 58. “It simply pains us to see the lack of self-respect in Episcopalians in their attempts to deal with the “holy Orthodox Eastern Church.” Although this community has a valid consecration, it adheres to the doctrine condemned by the XXXIX members and openly and clearly anathematizes Protestantism. Why do Episcopalians agree to be beaten and whipped right in the face because of a unity that is completely impossible? If they like it, then we have no reason to feel sorry for them, but even just for the sake of humanity, we protest against it” 59. “The Eastern churches, the publicist categorically declares, will never recognize the Episcopalians as anything other than a sect of Protestants” 60. But enough. We will not cite other unworthy antics that distinguished the Roman Catholic press during this time. In themselves they have no significance for us, but they are important for characterizing the attitude of Roman Catholicism to the issue under consideration and for assessing the very movement of Episcopalism towards unity with the East. If, according to the law of historical criticism, the belittling of the significance of a known fact by a party hostile to it is a sure sign of the real importance of this fact for it, then the real significance of this fact is determined from the presented attitude of the Roman Catholic press to the gravitation of the Episcopal Church towards the Orthodox East. It is indeed of enormous importance for the fate of Roman Catholicism in the United States: the Episcopal Church in its present precarious position serves, as the Roman Catholic bodies themselves admit, only as an intermediary for the acquisition of Roman Catholicism on American soil. About half of the converts to Roman Catholicism come either from or through Episcopalism. If the Episcopal Church really finds support in communion with the Orthodox East, then it will cease to be a ministerial instrument for Roman Catholicism and will either itself acquire stability in its existence, or, what is even more likely, will direct those seeking church truth to the East. In both cases there will be a heavy loss for Roman Catholicism and in the latter almost fatal. This explains his anxiety about the gravitation of the Episcopal Church towards the Orthodox East, and this anxiety appears even more clearly for a critical eye in the seemingly light mocking form of his attitude towards the fact. As for the positive significance of the fact under consideration, it is difficult to exaggerate it. The actual implementation of one or another union of the Episcopal Church with the Orthodox East would give the church principles of the latter the first and most reliable basis for penetration into the body of the American people, in which, as we have seen, there is no lack of receptivity to true church-religious principles and, on the contrary, there is a strong search for these principles. But the very ecclesiastical unity of both churches is possible only with a preliminary agreement in faith. “The Orthodox Church, says His Eminence Metropolitan Isidore in his letter to the Episcopal Church 61, considers a preliminary agreement in faith absolutely necessary for practical mutual participation in the sacraments, since the former is the only possible foundation or basis for the latter. And in order to achieve this very desirable goal, it would be necessary to carefully study and investigate the differences in the teaching of the two churches; and to promote this, a great principle of assistance will undoubtedly be found in the spirit of peace and love, which animates both churches, both Orthodox and Anglican, and in those prayers for the peace of the whole world and for the unity of God's holy churches, which are raised to the God of truth and mercy by the Eastern churches, and which are also probably shared by the Anglican churches. These few words express with categorical precision both the basis on which, from the Orthodox point of view, the unity of churches is possible, and the means that can lead to this unity. A detailed study of these means is not our task and would distract us far from the direct purpose of the treatise, and therefore, in order to conclude an outline of the religious state of the American people, we will summarize only the material presented to them. Three forces of different significance are at work in the religious life of the American people at the present time. The most important of them is a potential force, which, expressed in the American religious spirit’s search for immutable church truth, makes itself felt in dissatisfaction with the current forms of church-religious life and in a vague, but nevertheless strong desire for “canonicity” as a general expression of the church-religious ideal. This power operates throughout the American religious world, without distinction of churches, sects or denominations. Another force is the strength of episcopalism, as a church that is more or less close to the ideal of catholicity. This force is fighting for its identity as an independent church, and even claims to realize in itself the ecclesiastical truth that the American spirit yearns for, and thus give the potential aspirations of this spirit real existence. But at the first attempt, the internal inadequacy of this force to carry out the great task is revealed; therefore, it itself is looking for external support and, as it has preserved the integrity of Catholic traditions more than others, this church understands more clearly than others where to look for strong Catholic principles, in their immutable historical integrity, and hence its attraction to the Orthodox East and the search for unity with it. In this respect the Episcopal Church serves as a pointer to the wandering American spirit of that Catholic Church for which it vaguely seeks and in which it can find ultimate peace. From this position of episcopalism, it is also quite clear the enormous significance that the actual implementation of their desire for unity with the Orthodox Eastern Church can have for the direction of the religious consciousness of the American people. Finally, the third force is Roman Catholicism, which acts as an independent and persistent contender for the title of a single Catholic Church that can only satisfy the demands of the American religious spirit. Relying on its deep historical antiquity and with the help of its powerful church organization, it not only serves as a brake on the striving of the American religious spirit towards the Orthodox East, but also makes great gains in its own favor, directing this spirit into the bosom of its church, as the only representative of true catholicity. Over the past century, he has achieved extraordinary success in this regard and has made not only enormous actual acquisitions, but also received great social significance, which represents a guarantee of future success. The leader of the Socialist Party in New York, Justus Schwab, is a German emigrant, and his “revolutionary club” is a miserable and dirty beer store in a dirty section of the city. For specific features of American religiosity, see our book: “Life Overseas,” 1881. It is remarkable that over the past century, religious church life has developed more strongly than the entire population of the country. According to careful research, at the end of the last century there were less than 1950 churches in the country. Since the entire population then was 3.5 million, there was one church for every 1,700 souls. According to the last census of 1870, the total number of churches is shown to be over 72,000, which, with a population of 38,000,000, gives one church for every 529 souls. In other words, while the population increased 11 times, the number of churches increased almost 37 times. North American Review, Jan. 1876 ​​p. 23. The state of religiosity of the American people can be determined by another fact, namely the number of seats in churches. According to statistics, of the population, with the exception of minors, the sick and elderly, people engaged in housework and caring for the sick, employees on railways, ships, omnibuses and other places that require an indispensable presence at work, only 58 percent can be present at divine services. And the number of places in churches is quite sufficient for this number. According to the census of 1870, the population of the country was 38,558,371 people, and the number of seats in churches was 21,665,062, i.e., no more than 55 percent. Thus, only 3 percent had no place prepared in the churches. In 1860, when the population was smaller, the number of seats in churches almost rose to the required figure. The population was 31,443,321, and the number of seats 19,128,751, i.e. for 57 percent of the population. Ten years earlier, precisely in 1850, the number of places was even higher than the need. The population consisted of 23,191,876 souls, and the seats in the churches were 14,234,825, so that the latter were for 61 percent of the total population. See Dale, Impressions of America, 190-191 New-York, 1879. “The apparent decrease in the proportion of places in churches during the last decades is explained by the fact that during this time external emigration arrived in such enormous masses that church-building activity could in no way keep up with it and therefore lagged behind the course of the growth of the people. Bancroft, History of the United States of America, Vol. Chapter I IX, p, 293, etc. Centenary edition, Boston and 876. New York, for example, was founded by the Dutch, and from the time of its founding to the present time it has been the main port where emigration of various characters and faiths arrived. Its population now has a fully cosmopolitan character, and yet the stamp of Puritanism still lies on the nature of the religiosity of its population. See our book "Life overseas" 1881 A century ago, the major religious societies in their falsity stood in the following order: Congregational (Puritan), Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, German Reformed, Dutch Reformed and Roman Catholic. According to the 1870 census, they were already in the following order: Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Christian, Lutheran, Congregational and Protestant-Episcopal (Anglican). This order is based on the relative number of churches belonging to a particular community. Judging by the number of seats in the churches, the order will remain the same for the first four, but the Congregationalists and Episcopalians will surpass the Lutherans and Christians. Judging by the value of church property, the Roman Catholic Church would rank second and the Episcopal Church fifth. If we finally judge by the number of members included in the communities, then Methodism and Roman Catholicism will come first. This order continues to the present day, except in relation to property values, in which the Roman Catholic Church, according to the general assumption, in the census of 1880 should take first place. Diman, Religion in America 1776–1876. North American Review, vol. CXXII, pp. 22–23. American Almanac for 1881, page 46. The presented interaction of forces, which gradually established the current type of American religiosity, is fully consistent with the process of historical development of theological thought in the country. Three phases emerge sharply in the development of the latter. The first phase, coinciding with the exclusive dominance of the Puritans, represents a period of speculative thought, when theology was exclusively occupied with great questions about the relationship of man to God. “Every thinking mind strived to penetrate the mysteries that even angels shudder to contemplate.” Metaphysical questions permeated throughout life, and in high schools logic was considered the main science. The typical thinker of this era was Samuel Hopkins. When European emigration - German and Irish - intensified, the new religious element they introduced influenced the theological thought of the country and it entered the second phase - morally practical. Instead of the previous speculative metaphysical questions, thought took up moralizing questions and saw its ideal in the implementation of the gospel truths of love and brotherhood in people's relationships. The representative of this second phase was Channing, who was the true apostle of Christian humanism, whose influence was expressed in the great fact of the emancipation of the slaves. The third phase, which, however, has not yet developed into a final type, began after the Civil War and makes itself felt in the tendency towards the development of an aesthetic or romantic side in religion. This is an aesthetic basis, and its influence is reflected everywhere, even on such sects that hitherto fanatically denied any aesthetic element in worship. This trend is expressed in the development of church architecture, the development of certain rituals and various decorations of places of worship. Wed. North American Review vol. CXXII, pp. 42–46. In an article on the recently published sermons of the famous American preacher Rudder, the critic says: “In the numerous volumes of sermons coming out of print at the present time, the most remarkable thing is the tendency to avoid controversial points between sects and parties and dwell on principles that are equally contained by all.” N. Y. Times, April 11, 1881. Wed. North American Review, Jan. 1871 Art. "Religion in America 1776–1876". The learned author of a philosophical treatise on religion in America during the last century says: “The prevailing impulse of American religion, according to the general idea, is fragmentation into an infinite variety of sects. But nothing can be more certain from a review of our religious history than the gradual strengthening of a trend in a completely opposite direction. True, the plurality of sects is a fact, and in a country where the expression of opinions on all subjects is free, such a result is not surprising; but most small communities are only waves on the surface of a stream, which appear for moments and then disappear forever. In their most repulsive forms they are merely social excrescences which arise chiefly from foreign sources. The most characteristic fact of our religious history, as the census (1870) clearly shows, is not the tendency of American Christianity to be divided into many sects, but its tendency to be concentrated under a few large denominational types. This conservative preference on the part of the vast majority of a stable church order is the main and undoubted difference between our religious life. Whatever may have been the tendency in the former period, it is at present unquestionable in this direction.” Diman, “Religion in America 1776–1876,” p. in North American Review vol. CXXII, p. 31. Cp. N. Y. Herald, September 12, 1860. MacDonald, the British representative of the Episcopal Conference at Cincinnati, in his report says that “Methodism is essentially the national church in America.” Art. "American Methodism as seen by an Englishman". Its remarkable feature is that it arose from insignificance and in one century managed to occupy a leading position in the country among religious confessions, growing and expanding at the expense of other confessions. When the first Methodist conference met in Baltimore in 1784, they had only 60 preachers, worshiping in barns and under the cover of the sky, and by the census of 1870 Methodism already had 25,000 parish organizations with church property of $70,000,000. North American Review, Jan. 1876, b. 25 Galaxy for 1868. Catholic World, vol. VIII p. 145. “Our own church is destined to be the church of the future in our country,” says the Episcopal Churchman. It is a church of apostolic establishment and origin, with a pure, uncorrupted faith, with a duly authorized hierarchy, with the word and sacraments of the Gospel and, through them, with the right to communicate divine grace, without which all would be void words and forms. Whatever may be said about others, it cannot be denied that all this is true in relation to our church. We do not find that all this, in any particular, applies to any other church in this country except ours.” Churchman, dated July 25, 1868. Hecker, Catholic Church in the U.S. p. 22. “The enormous popular influence of Methodism, according to an American writer, lies in its bold conversion from the theology of reason to the theology of feeling.” North American Review, Jan. 1876 p. 26. See "Constitution adopted in General Convention in Philadelphia, October 1789". It is usually placed in the appendix to the journals of the general triennial conventions. See, for example, the Journals of General Convention for 1868, 1871, 1874 and 1877. “The revolution dealt this church a heavy blow. It was reduced to almost insignificance; many despaired of the possibility of the continuation of the existence of this community except in connection with the state.” North American Review Vol. CXXII. p. 18. At the general convention of 1853, many memorials of this kind were submitted by the most prominent representatives of the Episcopal Church. Afterwards they were collected and published in a separate book by Bishop Potter in 1857 under the title: “Memorial Papers,” but then this book was found to be harmful to the church and all copies of it were destroyed, so we use only the extracts from it made in Catholic Word, Vol. VII, in the article “The Church jf the Future.” This dream runs like a red stripe throughout the journalistic and historical literature of Roman Catholicism in the United States. “The idea of ​​the incompatibility of Roman Catholicism with mental progress and the course of modern civilization is nowhere more widespread than in America. Draper's famous book is an expression of the general American view of Roman Catholicism. Wed. Pamphlet – Roman Catholicism in the U, S. New-York 1879. Barnum, Romanism. Catholic World, Vol. VIII Art. "Hypnotics" Vol. Vct. Rome or Reason. The latest articles constitute a refutation of popular views.” This idea is developed with particular completeness in Thompson’s essay: “The Papacy and the Civil Power” New-York 1879. Sl. also Roman Catholicism in the U.S. especially ch. VI; Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1876 ​​Art. “The Catholic peril in America”, etc. Catholic World, Vol. VIII, pp. 149, 150. Excerpts from Memorial Papers at Catholic Church of the Future. World Vol. VII, Art. The Church of the Future. Catholic World, Vol. V, r. 64, art. Ritualism. We personally had to attend worship services in ritualistic churches and observe its features. Description of one of the ritualistic churches, namely St. Alban's, published in Catholic World Vol. V, art. Ritualism. Catholic Word, Vol. VIII, p. 830, V, p. 57. In New York State there are several ritualistic "brotherhoods" of a monastic character. New-York Times November 16, 1868, editorial review In this presentation, we use a shorthand report published in the best and most serious newspaper, the New-York Times, for 1868. In issues of September 28, October 6, 9, and 30, and November 16. N.Y. Times, September 28 1808. This position obviously applies especially to American Episcopalism, which as a result acquired the name of an aristocratic religion. In America you can meet many people who are very devout and religious, but who do not belong to any religion, considering themselves generally Christians. We personally know several similar persons, some of whom are respectable and more than elderly people. This religious impersonality was expressed even in a special community, the so-called. “Christians”, which does not recognize any confessional form for itself. New-York Times, September 28 1868 Closing Words of the First Lecture on Sunday, September 27th N.Y. Times of September 28, 1868 N. York Times, October 6 and 30, 1863. N.Y. Times, October 30, 1868. Regarding this position, the Roman Catholic critic says: “We are surprised at the statement of Dr. Ewer that the Greek Church has no cult of St. Mary Ever-Virgin, as a result of which many Anglicans, like Pusey, opposed to the Roman Church because of this cult, seek communication with the schismatic Greeks; but among them this cult is taken to such an extreme, the likes of which there is nothing in the Latin Church.” Catholic World, Vol. VIII, p. 520. It must be borne in mind that this tirade was written in 1869 and therefore after the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by the Roman Church. N.Y. Times, dated 30 Oct. 1868. Applying his theory to Protestantism, Ewer says in passing: Suppose that individual branches of this tree are cut off from time to time and placed around the larger tree in vases of water. Being without root, the most long ago cut off of them all are dead; Meanwhile, those recently cut off are still manifested by a deceptive life and will soon wither and die. These cut branches, standing without trunk or root around a living tree, would be suitable symbols for Protestant sects.” He is currently the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Ignatius in New York and from time to time continues his preaching of "seeking the catholic church" N. Y. No. 50 West, 40th street. Another no less powerful exponent of this quest for "catholicity" is Dr. Knox, See, in his brilliant article "The Organic Unity of the Church" in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review for October, 1876. New-York Times September 28, 1868. See the "Beginnings" of the Reformed Episcopal Church in its organ, the Episcopal Recorder. dated April 16, 1861. The Principles were developed in 1873. Catholic World, Vol. VIII, p. 470. See Journal of Proceedings of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopalian Church in 1868. Appendix IV, p. 427. Journal of Proceedings, 1868, p. 428. Journal of Proceedings, 1868, p. 43 Journal of Proceedings, 1868, p. 430 Journal of Proceedings, 1868, p. 160 Journal of Proceedings, 1868, p. 196 See Journal of Proceedings of the General Convention 1874. Appendix, p. 556. Catholic World Vol. VIII, concluding thoughts of the article “Church of the Future”. The unknown author of the article himself (in all likelihood the editor of the magazine Hecker) counts himself among such seekers of truth who finally found it in the bosom of Roman Catholicism. A number of articles by Barnabit Toldini, published in the XX and XXI volumes of Catholic World under the title: “The Future of the Russian Church”, are especially distinguished by this character. Among other numerous articles of the same kind, we will indicate the following articles: Anglican and Greek Church (Vol. II); Anglicanism and Greek schieme (ibidem); the Patriarchate of Constantinople (Vol, III); Greek schisme (Vol. X); Anglicanism of present (Vol. XX), etc. The Russian Clergy. By prince Gagarine. To popularize this book, Roman Catholic magazines also published several articles explaining and confirming the author’s fabrications. See eg. Catholic Word Vol. XV, art. Russian Clergy. The real title of the book is “The Russo-Greek Church, by a former resident in Russia.” Catholic World, in its biographical note (Vol. I), frankly says that it was written to show the absurdity of the Episcopalians' rush to the East. Biographical literature of this kind is extensive and, in addition to individual monographs, includes a whole series of journal essays. From separate books, we will point out the very widespread biography of Prince Golitsin Brownson, Life of prince Demetrius Gallitzine, New-York 1872 Articles of the same kind were published in Catholic World: Madame Swetchine. Catholic Worth, Vol. VIII, art. General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, p. 467. Catholic World, ibidem, p. 467. Catholic World, Vol. XV, r. 510. Catholic World, Vol. XX, p. 468. Catholic World, Vol. XX, p. 471 We use the English text of this message in the Journals of Proceedings of the General Convention of 1874, Appendix X. Journals of Proceedings 1874, Appendix X, p. 545–546 You might be interested in: